communal political meeting. Both assemblies are the primary form of the
politico-social organization. Both are the foundation of the structure
of the State. The essential objects of both are the same: to enact local
regulations, to elect local officers, to fix local taxation, and to
make appropriations for local purposes. At both, any citizen may propose
measures, and these the majority may accept or reject--_i.e._, the
working principles of town and commune alike are the Initiative and the
Referendum.

A fair idea of the proceedings at all town meetings may be gained
through description of one. For several reasons, a detailed account here
of what actually happened recently at a town meeting is, it seems to me,
justified. At such a gathering is seen, in plain operation, in the
primary political assembly, the principles of direct legislation. The
departure from those principles in a representative gathering is then
the more clearly seen. In many parts of the country, too, the methods of
the town meeting are little known. By observing the transactions in
particular, the reader will learn the variety in the play of democratic
principle and draw from it instructive inference.

The town of Rockland, Plymouth county, in the east of Massachusetts, has
5,200 inhabitants; assesses for taxation 5,787 acres of land; contains
1,078 dwelling houses, 800 of which are occupied by owners, and numbers
1,591 poll tax payers, who are therefore voters.

At 9 a.m., on Monday, March 2, 1891, 819 voters of Rockland assembled in
the opera house for the annual town meeting, the "warrant" for which, in
accordance with the law, had been publicly posted seven days before and
published once in each of the two town newspapers. A presiding officer
for the day, called a moderator, was elected by show of hands, after